Brazil Supreme Court Rules Digital Platforms Are Liable For Users' Posts (ft.com) 40
Brazil's supreme court has ruled that social media platforms can be held legally responsible for their users' posts. From a report: Companies such as Facebook, TikTok and X will have to act immediately to remove material such as hate speech, incitement to violence or "anti-democratic acts," even without a prior judicial takedown order, as a result of the decision in Latin America's largest nation late on Thursday.
...will have to act immediately to remove material (Score:2)
I guess they'll remove themselves instead.
Re: (Score:1)
On the other hand I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing but I'm not sure it's a good thing either.
I think the issue is that in Brazil they have some pretty extreme violence being coordinated and encouraged on social media sites.
Of course the potential for abuse here is enormous, you can basically shut down anyone you don't like with false reports.
It's one of those things where there are deeper underlining problems but an
Re: (Score:2)
So the trolls will just post and post and repost with different wordings and user names.
AI makes it easy.
Useless theater.
Re: (Score:2)
So the trolls will just post and post and repost with different wordings and user names. AI makes it easy. Useless theater.
Spam used to post and re-post with different wordings and email addresses. Then we got much better at blocking and ignoring that nonsense altogether. Today, the overwhelming majority of email sent from the raw internet is blocked/filtered.
The Wild West era of social media is coming to an end. Probably for the best if it wishes to ultimately survive. The West didn't remain Wild for valid reason.
Re: (Score:3)
I agree with the parent.
They will have to shut down. There is no way to comply with the law, nor should they have to (but that's another topic).
The only way that this will work is if the government only uses the law when it desires to, not when actual violations occur. If they tried to prosecute every incident they would be overwhelmed. So, it's a good tool of repression, I guess.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The article is paywalled but if the profits outweigh the consequences they'll stay.
Russia has some businesses practices that are illegal but reasonable so the fines are $30 a year. Some politician got his win but not really.
It's either cynical or a business license depending on how you look at it. In many US places being in businesses is illegal if you don't pay the government for the privilege of earning a living.
On the other hand EU fines US Big Tech hundreds of millions for stuff they don't like. Apple
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
not when the average income is about $7000 USD.
Some are super rich which means the vast majority make less than that.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree with the parent.
They will have to shut down. There is no way to comply with the law, nor should they have to (but that's another topic).
The only way that this will work is if the government only uses the law when it desires to, not when actual violations occur. If they tried to prosecute every incident they would be overwhelmed. So, it's a good tool of repression, I guess.
From the ruling: "remove content that promotes anti-democratic actions, terrorism, hate speech, child pornography, and other serious crimes". Brazil is known for corruption. I'm not worried about social media companies at this point - I'm worried about the average citizen being caught up in this nonsense. Oh, that's a nice small business you have - it would be a shame if that business were found to be posting illegal hate speech online...
See also the story of Archibald Buttle.
Re: (Score:1)
Sure, response times would drop some...but how much response time do you need for FB??
Re: (Score:2)
If they have no assets or staff in the country and no payments being made to or from the country it would be difficult to argue that they are subject to that countries laws.
Re: (Score:2)
Facebook offers services, some free, some paid, to citizens of Brazil so yes, their activities can be legislated.
Re: (Score:2)
Meta takes money from Brazilian companies who want to show ads, that's why Facebook exists in Brazil.
Re: (Score:2)
If they tried to prosecute every incident they would be overwhelmed.
Sort of like speeding laws. But speeding laws do limit how fast most people drive and this will result in less of the content they are trying to limit. Facebook "pays" people with free service to provide the content they use to attract advertisers. I am not sure why there is anything wrong with regulating commercial sites' content regardless of who creates it.
Re: (Score:2)
Google does it for ads, and it makes them a lot of money.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
>"Not a chance. They will just come up with unpleasant ways to comply."
It is a nebulous, undefinable goal. Any speech can be "hate speech" depending on who is reading it. Any speech can be "anti-democratic acts" when twisted by the reader.
What will ACTUALLY happen is that Brazil's government will use this type of thing to target the "speech" of anyone they don't like or threatens their regime in any way.
I suppose some platforms might try to play the game, but it is pretty gross, even if they can someho
Re: (Score:2)
The internet is the last place you should go for information that doesn't come straight from a corporate billionaires asshole.
There, I fixed your typo.
Re: (Score:2)
Dang you're right, I hope we do this here.
good (Score:5, Interesting)
R.I.P. Social media (Score:4, Insightful)
you will not be missed
Re: (Score:1, Insightful)
No, the gov't there will probably implement their own social media to control thought, and exempt themselves from being sued.
It's what authoritarians do.
Re: R.I.P. Social media (Score:3, Insightful)
No, what authoritarians do is crack down on scapegoats like immigrants, round them up and deport them illegally. Or forbid books.
Re: (Score:1)
Such actions are not mutually exclusive.
Re: (Score:2)
Brazil isn't in any list of Authoritarian countries. They're pretty well classified even, in the South American context. See any of these maps: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: R.I.P. Social media (Score:2)
Such are the outdated views from foreigners. This is the Brazilian Supreme Court avenue to sue US companies, in a clear response to the Trump Media Group suing Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice and recently the actual ruler of Brazil.
The Soviet press didn't write bad stuff either (Score:1, Insightful)
Grandpa informs me they didn't even report on emergencies or health hazard.
There was a major mudslide in Kiev at some point in the 60s. Lots of casualties. People working asses and elbows to rescue and recover. Not a peep in the local media. Nothing bad happened.
Chernobyl? Nothing to see here. Grandpa knew about because he worked at a place that had radiation detectors. Warned my mom to take Little Baby RightwingNutjob out of town early.
Oh and of course in the absense of open communication, rumors traveled
Re: The Soviet press didn't write bad stuff either (Score:1)
He wasn't wrong. Watched something on DW a few months ago about Ukrainian "war refugees" being settled in Germany. Mainly women and children but a couple of fighting-age men too. They ain't going back unless they want to be duct-taped to a light pole for desserting.
WW2 was similar. Even if all you were doing was trying to survive a bad situation, someone out there will take issue with how you did it. Even if you didn't do anything and just were lucky enough to make it through until it blew over, the risk wa
Re: (Score:2)
Non-fighters not wishing to be part of war is exactly what a war refugee is. Fighting-age men deserting and fleeing are war refugees. It is shocking to compare that to murderers wanting to avoid being judged for their crimes after the war finished (Nazis fleeing Europe).
This is why Brazil is a shithole (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds fun (Score:2, Insightful)
The Supreme Court of the United States of America should do the same. And jailing sociopathic billionaires who break sh*t sounds like a worth-while hobby. We should all try it.
Re: (Score:2)
Truth Social will be exempt.
Act immediately (Score:2)
Block all ips from Brazil. That's really the easiest and cheapest solution.
Perhaps the government should do it then? (Score:2)
Perhaps governments that want the citizens and corporations to police speech should provide a webapi like https://gov.br/IsAcceptablePos... [gov.br] that returns true or false, so we all know what is okay and what is not.